Participate.com Goes for Profits
By Building Web Communities

Participate.com Inc. founder Alan Warms has a tough sell. He's trying to get big corporations to embrace online communities as profit engines -- and to pay his company fees to create and manage them.

To get past potential clients' doubts about community areas -- perhaps best known for lowbrow chat rooms and esoteric discussions -- Mr. Warms, 34 years old, says he pitches community services as critical to cost cutting and drumming up...